Management of smart tags via hierarchy

ABSTRACT

Embodiments herein include presenting smart tags describing characteristics of image content in a hierarchy, and performing operations on the hierarchy to find particular image content within a larger amount of image content. Image content and corresponding tags are maintained. The corresponding tags associated with the image content are presented in a hierarchy. Each tag type in the hierarchy represents a characteristic associated with the image content. Each tag in the hierarchy is derived based on image-based processing applied to the image content. In response to receiving a selection of at least one tag in the hierarchy, display of the image content associated with the at least one tag is initiated. A user is able to quickly and easily find desired image content by using the hierarchy to look at tags, select a type of tag from the hierarchy, and thereafter view any content tagged with the selected tag type.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This Patent Application is related to co-pending U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 12/196,127, entitled “GENERATION OF SMART TAGS TO LOCATEELEMENTS OF CONTENT” and filed on Aug. 21, 2008, the contents andteachings of which are hereby incorporated by reference in theirentirety.

BACKGROUND

Users take more photographs, audio, and video with digital cameras andcamcorders (as well as cell phones) now than ever before. In the past,the primary disadvantage to acquiring large amounts of digital contentwas a lack of inexpensive storage devices available, particularly if auser acquired the content in a high resolution format. Advances instorage technology have resulted in greater amounts of storage beingsold at a lower cost, such that it is now possible to purchase manygigabits of storage for a few hundred dollars, sometimes less. Now, theopposite situation has emerged, where most users of digital devices haveso much acquired content, it is hard for them to easily organize andmake sense of it all.

A number of software applications are available that allow a user topreview and navigate their digital content wherever that content may bestored, and then edit it, share it, and produce the content in a varietyof ways. Even operating systems, such as the Microsoft® Windows® familyof operating systems, include an automatic preview of a foldercontaining digital images by providing thumbnails of some of the imagescontained within a folder. Other applications may create previews intheir own particular ways, such as showing a number of condensed-sizedthumbnails of digital images, a short clip of a longer video file, or ashort clip of a longer audio file.

Operating systems, such as Microsoft® Vista®, as well as digital contentacquisition applications that come bundled with a digitalcamera/camcorder, such as Olympus® X®, or is freely available, such asPicasa® by Google®, allow a user to identify elements of digital contentwhen a user downloads that content from a source (i.e., a digitalcamera, cameraphone, digital camcorder or other video recorder, memorydevice located in a digital device, and so on) to a computer. This is amanual process that involves the user typing, or otherwise providing,the descriptive information to the application. These applications thusallow a user to preview and search through digital content. Someinformation about the digital content may be produced by the capturingdevice itself, and is then acquired by the application. For example, adigital camera may encode, within a digital image captured by thecamera, the type of camera used to capture the image, as well as thetime and date on which the image was captured, the size of the image inbytes, the settings used by the camera when capturing the image, and soon.

SUMMARY

Conventional mechanisms for finding digital content in a large libraryof digital content suffer from a variety of deficiencies. One suchdeficiency is that searching for a desired portion of content is amanual process that may take a substantial amount of time to review. Insome cases, when a user is looking for a piece of content among a fewpieces of such content (e.g., a photograph of the user and his brotherfrom among twenty photographs), the user simply views each of the twentyphotographs until he finds the one he wants. Similarly, when the desiredportion of content may be described simply, such as a video from aparticular date, a manual search process, either of manually viewing therecording dates of all videos or using a search function to find videosfrom a particular date, is reasonably straightforward and involveslittle time on the part of the user. However, when the desired portionof content is a complex event, such as a particular group of peopletogether in a video or image at, say, a particular birthday party, andespecially when the library of available content is large, the manualsearch process may be long and tedious. A user would first have toidentify all content that might include the particular birthday party,either by viewing all of the available content or through othermechanisms. The user will then have to manually go through every image,or every frame of video, to find those images/portions of video thatinclude all the people in the desired group. This is an efficient,time-consuming process that requires the user to manually review atleast some of the content in order to complete the search.

Embodiments of the invention significantly overcome such deficienciesand provide mechanisms and techniques that allow for quick and easysearches of libraries of digital content, even when the search is for acomplex event, without ever having to look at any of the content.

For example, certain embodiments herein include presenting tags, forselected content, which describe various events in the content. The tagsmay be presented in a hierarchical format, such as a tree.

The tags in the hierarchical tree may be grouped according to relatedcharacteristics, such as scenes, face detection, and so on. Thus, forexample, there may be a number associated with each of one or more tagsto indicate the number of faces present in an image or frame; other tagsmay indicate the presence of a particular face in an image or a frame.Such tags may be grouped into a face detection group, with varioussubgroups in the hierarchy (i.e., one face, two face, Jane's face, Tom'sface, etc.).

In further embodiments, tags may also be grouped into groupsrepresentative of characteristics of the content itself, such as amotion group, with subgroups including pan, tilt, zoom, and furthersubgroups such as tilt up, tilt down, and so on.

According to one embodiment herein, the hierarchical tree may benavigable. For example, a user may drill down and expand levels of thehierarchical tree to view respective subgroups, or may look only attop-level groups.

Based on navigating amongst the tree, a user is then able to select oneor more tags that define an event of interest to the user, with theresult being that all content associated with those selected tag(s) isfound and displayed to the user. Thus, if a user desires to find alloccurrences of Jane's face in nine distinct video files, the user simplyselects the tag corresponding to the presence of Jane's face in content,and all portions of the nine video files in which Jane's face appearsare shown to the user. The user does not have to look through videos orimages, or manually parse any search results, to find the desiredcontent. If the user wishes to find Jane's face from a particular event,such as her last birthday party, the user simply selects all therelevant tags within the hierarchy, and again, the appropriate contentis found and displayed to the user without having to view any of thecontent.

As will be discussed later in this specification, the search may bemulti-level. For example, a first portion of the search may includeselecting a tag type indicating a presence of Jane's face. A searchprocess identifies any portions of the content tagged with the selectedtag. A subsequent level of the search may include identifying whichportions of content tagged with Jane's face are also tagged with a tagtype indicating that the image is related to a birthday.

More particularly, in one embodiment, there is provided a method. Themethod includes maintaining image content and corresponding tags. Imagecontent as described herein may be any digital content that includes atleast one image, either a static image (i.e., photograph) or a dynamicset of images (i.e., video), and may include other non-image content(e.g., audio, text, etc.).

The method as described herein may include presenting the correspondingtags associated with the image content in a hierarchy, each tag type inthe hierarchy representing a characteristic associated with the imagecontent, each tag in the hierarchy being derived based on image-basedprocessing applied to the image content. As mentioned above, thehierarchy may be a tree format, with top level groups and sub-groupslocated underneath. A tag in the tree may identify one or moreoccurrences that are present in the image content, and the location(s)of those occurrences.

In response to receiving a selection of at least one tag in thehierarchy, the method also includes initiating display of the imagecontent associated with the at least one tag. Thus, for a user to findsome particular occurrence, or combination of occurrences, within theimage content, such as a group of people standing outside, the user needonly simply select the appropriate tags (e.g., “3 or more people” and“outside”) in the hierarchy, and the relevant image content isautomatically shown to the user.

In a related embodiment, the method may include filtering tags in thehierarchy into a sub-group of related tags, wherein the sub-group ofrelated tags includes a first type of tags and a second type of tags.The method may also include receiving a selection of the sub-group ofrelated tags, and in response to receiving the selection, initiatingdisplay of image content tagged with the first type of tags and thesecond type of tags.

In another related embodiment, the method may include searching thehierarchy of tags to find tags indicating at least one event of interestcaptured by the image content. A search may be initiated by a user, andmay be performed in any known way. The hierarchy may contain all of thenecessary information at each top-level and sub-level grouping of tagsto allow searching within any particular level or group of tags. Uponfinding a group of tags indicating the at least one event of interest,the method may also include automatically selecting the group of tagsand corresponding portions of the image content tagged with the group oftags.

In yet another related embodiment, maintaining the corresponding tagsmay include maintaining metadata information associated with thecorresponding tags, the metadata information defining attributes of theimage content tagged with the corresponding tags. The method may furtherinclude receiving event information defining a particular type of eventof interest. Thus, an event of interest may be defined by a user andprovided to embodiments in order to search. The method may also includeperforming a search with respect to the metadata information associatedwith the corresponding tags to locate portions of the image content inwhich the particular type of event of interest occurs for image contenttagged with the corresponding tags, and in response to the search,displaying the portions of the image content in which the particulartype of event of interest occurs in the image content.

In still yet another related embodiment, maintaining may further includemaintaining video content including multiple frames of images and tagsindicating frames of the video in which different events occur, andreceiving may include receiving selection of a particular type of tagfrom the hierarchy. Initiating display may include searching for framesof the video tagged with the particular type of tag, and initiatingdisplay of the frames of the video tagged with the particular type oftag. Thus, a user is able to find portions of video that include eventsof interest by selecting a particular type of tag within the hierarchyof tags.

In yet another related embodiment, maintaining may include receivingmetadata values associated with portions of the image content taggedwith the corresponding tags, and associating the metadata values withthe corresponding tags. The metadata values may be discovered throughimage-based processing, such as the blurriness/focus level, brightness,contrast, color balance, and so on. Numeric values representing any ofthese are stored within the tags as metadata. More particularly, in afurther related embodiment, the method may include searching withingroups of the hierarchy of tags to find tags within a particular groupthat represent a range of values that describe an event of interestpresent in the image content associated with the tags, upon finding suchtags, selecting the found tags and displaying the image contentassociated with the found tags. Thus, if a user desired to find allportion of image content where the image was slightly out of focus, theuser simply performs a search for the corresponding range of valuesrepresenting slightly out of focus images on the hierarchy. The userneed not see any of the image content in order to find the portions thatare out of focus according to the defined range:

In still another related embodiment, the method may include, prior topresenting tags, receiving, for each tag within a plurality of tagsassociated with the image content, analysis data descriptive of aparameter of a portion of the image content associated with that tag.This may be the same analysis data used as the metadata described above,or may be supplemental analysis determined from image-based processingtechniques or other evaluation techniques. The method may also include,prior to presenting tags, deriving quality tags from an evaluation ofcombinations of the parameters described by the analysis data, a qualitytag representing a portion of image content associated with a subset ofthe plurality of tags, each quality tag describing a quality level ofthe represented image content. Thus, a quality tag identifies whether aportion of image content is, for example, of high quality (i.e., noblurriness, proper focus level, proper color adjustments, etc.), mediumquality (i.e., slightly blurry but not indecipherable, color levelsslightly off, etc.), or low quality (i.e., so blurry the image contentis useless to the user, color levels not representative of the actualevent the image content was to capture, etc.). Presenting tags may theninclude presenting tags associated with the image content and thequality tags in a hierarchy, each tag in the hierarchy describing acharacteristic of a portion of the image content, each tag being derivedbased on image-based processing applied to the image content. Thus, auser would be able to find all high quality image content including fourpeople by simply selecting the corresponding tags in the hierarchy, andwithout viewing any of the content. In a further related embodiment,initiating display may include, in response to receiving a selection ofa quality tag and at least one other tag, initiating presentation of aportion of image content that satisfies the quality level associatedwith the quality tag and includes characteristics described by the atleast one other tag.

In yet still another related embodiment, initiating display may include,in response to receiving a selection of at least one tag in thehierarchy, presenting each portion of image content associated with theat least one tag, in response to receiving a selection of a presentedportion of image content, initiating playback of the selected portion ofimage content, and upon completion of playback of the selected portionof image content, initiating playback of a successive presented portionof image content.

In still yet another related embodiment, presenting may further includeinitiating display of the hierarchy to multiple levels, a first taglevel of the hierarchy representing tags of a particular type, andinitiating display of multiple tag sub-levels beneath the first taglevel in the hierarchy, the multiple sub-levels including a first tagsub-level and a second tag sub-level, the first tag sub-levelrepresenting a first type of tags of the particular type, the second tagsub-level representing a second type of tags of the particular type.Thus, a motion tag may be a first tag level of the hierarchy, and underit as sub-level tags may be a pan tag, a zoom tag, and a tilt tag. Thepan tag sub-level includes all pan-type tags (i.e., pan left, pan right,etc.); the zoom tag sublevel includes all zoom-type tags (i.e., zoom in,zoom out, etc.); the tilt tag sub-level includes all tilt-type tags(i.e., tilt up, tilt down, etc.). All pan-type tags, zoom-type tags, andtilt-type tags are also motion-type tags. In a further relatedembodiment, the method may further include, responsive to selection ofthe first tag level, initiating display of portions of the image contenttagged with the first type of tags and the second types of tags, andresponsive to selection of the first tag sub-level beneath the first taglevel, initiating display of portions of the image content tagged withthe first type of tags, and responsive to selection of the second tagsub-level, initiating display of portions of the image content taggedwith the second type of tags. Thus, if a user selects the motion tag,image content tagged with any pan-type tags, any zoom-type tags, and anytilt-type tags is shown. If the user selects only the pan tag, then onlyimage content tagged with pan-type tags, and not with zoom-type tags ortilt-type tags, is shown. If the next tag level below motion tag is afaces tag, then only image content tagged with a faces-type tag isshown.

In yet still another related embodiment, presenting may includeinitiating display of a respective tag associated with the imagecontent, receiving selection of the respective tag, and in response tothe selection of the respective tag, initiating display of metadatainformation associated with the respective tag. This metadatainformation may be information that informs a user of why the respectivetag was generated. In still another related embodiment, the method mayfurther include initiating display of metadata information including atleast one parameter value that triggered generation of the respectivetag to be created, and initiating display of additional metadatainformation including at least one parameter value that did not triggergeneration of the respective tag.

In another embodiment, there is provided a computer program productincluding a computer-storage medium having instructions stored thereonfor processing data information. The instructions, when carried out by aprocessing device, enable the processing device to perform operations ofmaintaining image content and corresponding tags; presenting thecorresponding tags associated with the image content in a hierarchy,each tag type in the hierarchy representing a characteristic associatedwith the image content, each tag in the hierarchy being derived based onimage-based processing applied to the image content; and in response toreceiving a selection of at least one tag in the hierarchy, initiatingdisplay of the image content associated with the at least one tag.

In another embodiment, there is provided a computer system to carry outthe methods as discussed above and below. In an example embodiment, thecomputer system may include a processor, a memory unit that storesinstructions associated with an application executed by the processor, adisplay, and an interconnect coupling the processor, the memory unit,and the display, enabling the computer system to execute the applicationand perform operations of: maintaining image content and correspondingtags; presenting the corresponding tags associated with the imagecontent in a hierarchy, each tag type in the hierarchy representing acharacteristic associated with the image content, each tag in thehierarchy being derived based on image-based processing applied to theimage content; and in response to receiving a selection of at least onetag in the hierarchy, initiating display of the image content associatedwith the at least one tag.

Other arrangements of embodiments of the invention that are disclosedherein include software programs to perform the method embodiment stepsand operations summarized above and disclosed in detail below. Moreparticularly, a computer program product is one embodiment that has acomputer-readable medium including computer program logic encodedthereon that when performed in a computerized device provides associatedoperations providing client management of download sequence oforchestrated content as explained herein. The computer program logic,when executed on at least one processor with a computing system, causesthe processor to perform the operations (e.g., the methods) indicatedherein as embodiments of the invention. Such arrangements of theinvention are typically provided as software, code and/or other datastructures arranged or encoded on a computer readable medium such as anoptical medium (e.g., CD-ROM), floppy or hard disk or other medium suchas firmware or microcode in one or more ROM or RAM or PROM chips or asan Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) or as downloadablesoftware images in one or more modules, shared libraries, etc. Thesoftware or firmware or other such configurations may be installed ontoa computerized device to cause one or more processors in thecomputerized device to perform the techniques explained herein asembodiments of the invention. Software processes that operate in acollection of computerized devices, such as in a group of datacommunications devices or other entities may also provide the system ofthe invention. The system of the invention may be distributed betweenmany software processes on several data communications devices, or allprocesses could run on a small set of dedicated computers, or on onecomputer alone.

It is to be understood that embodiments of the invention may be embodiedstrictly as a software program, as software and hardware, or as hardwareand/or circuitry alone, such as within a data communications device. Thefeatures disclosed and explained herein may be employed in datacommunications devices and other computerized devices and softwaresystems for such devices such as those manufactured by Adobe SystemsIncorporated, of San Jose, Calif.

Note that each of the different features, techniques, configurations,etc. discussed in this disclosure may be executed independently or incombination. Accordingly, the present invention may be embodied andviewed in many different ways. Also, note that this summary sectionherein does not specify every embodiment and/or incrementally novelaspect of the present disclosure or claimed invention. Instead, thissummary only provides a preliminary discussion of different embodimentsand corresponding points of novelty over conventional techniques. Foradditional details, elements, and/or possible perspectives(permutations) of the invention, the reader is directed to the DetailedDescription section and corresponding figures of the present disclosureas further discussed below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The foregoing will be apparent from the following description ofparticular embodiments disclosed herein, as illustrated in theaccompanying drawings in which like reference characters refer to thesame parts throughout the different views. The drawings are notnecessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon illustratingthe principles disclosed herein.

FIG. 1 shows a high-level block diagram of a computer system thatdisplays a hierarchy of smart tags for finding occurrences within imagecontent according to embodiments described herein.

FIGS. 2-4 show example graphical user interfaces including hierarchiesof smart tags and displayed image content according to embodimentsdescribed herein.

FIGS. 5A and 5B illustrate flowcharts of presenting a hierarchy of smarttags and finding image content by searching the hierarchy according toembodiments described herein.

FIG. 6 illustrates a flowchart of searching a hierarchy of smart tags tofind one or more portions of video according to embodiments describedherein.

FIG. 7 illustrates a flowchart of receiving analysis data and creatingquality tags therefrom as part of a hierarchy of smart tags according toembodiments described herein.

FIG. 8 illustrates a flowchart of playing image content found through ahierarchy of smart tags according to embodiments described herein.

FIG. 9 illustrates examples of different types of tags, including aquality tag formed from a variety of tags according to embodimentsdescribed herein.

FIGS. 10-13 illustrates block diagrams of systems according toembodiments described herein where a plurality of tags are shown in atimeline dependent on a selection of tags from within a hierarchy.

FIG. 14 illustrates a flowchart of tags being presented in a hierarchyand selections of those tags affecting display of tags and theirassociated image content on a display screen according to embodimentsdescribed herein.

FIG. 15 illustrates a flowchart of displaying metadata informationaccording to embodiments described herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Generally, disclosed embodiments provide techniques for presenting tagsassociated with image content in a hierarchy, and finding image contentusing those tags without having to manually view any of the imagecontent. In an example embodiment, the tags are generated based onanalyzing elements such as pixels associated with image content tocreate a set of different types of tags. Thereafter, a display managerinitiates display of the different tags in a hierarchical tree. Uponselection of one or more tags in the hierarchical tree, a user mayinitiate display of particular portions of the image content havingcharacteristics as specified by the selected one or more tags in thehierarchical tree.

More particularly, FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating examplearchitecture of a computer system 110 that executes, runs, interprets,operates or otherwise performs an image-related smart tag presentationapplication 140-1 and an image-related smart tag presentation process140-2 suitable for use in explaining example configurations disclosedherein. The computer system 110 may be any type of computerized devicesuch as a personal computer, workstation, portable computing device,console, laptop, network terminal or the like. As shown in this example,the computer system 110 includes an interconnect 111 such as a data busor other circuitry that couples a memory unit 112, a processor 113, aninput/output interface 114, and a communications interface 115. An inputdevice 116 (e.g., one or more user controlled devices such as akeyboard, mouse, touchpad, trackball, etc.) couples to the processor 113through the I/O interface 114 and enables a user 108, such as a personsearching for particular occurrences in image content, to provide inputcommands and generally control a graphical user interface 160 shown on adisplay 130, as described further herein. The communications interface115 enables the computer system 110 to communicate with other devices(e.g., other computers) on a network (not shown in FIG. 1).

The memory unit 112 is any type of computer readable medium and in thisexample is encoded with an image-related smart tag presentationapplication 140-1. The image-related smart tag presentation application140-1 may be embodied as software code such as data and/or logicinstructions (e.g., code stored in the memory unit or on anothercomputer readable medium such as a removable disk) that supportsprocessing functionality according to different embodiments describedherein. During operation of the computer system 110, the processor 113accesses the memory unit 112 via the interconnect mechanism 111 in orderto launch, run, execute, interpret or otherwise perform the logicinstructions of the image-related smart tag presentation application140-1. Execution of the image-related smart tag presentation application140-1 in this manner produces processing functionality in animage-related smart tag presentation process 140-2. In other words, theimage-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 represents one ormore portions or runtime instances of the image-related smart tagpresentation application 140-1 performing or executing within or uponthe processor 113 in the computer system 110 at runtime.

It is noted that example configurations disclosed herein include theimage-related smart tag presentation application 140-1 itself includingthe image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 (i.e., in theform of un-executed or non-performing logic instructions and/or data).The image-related smart tag presentation application 140-1 may be storedon a computer readable medium (such as a floppy disk), hard disk,electronic, magnetic, optical or other computer readable medium. Theimage-related smart tag presentation application 140-1 may also bestored in a memory system 112 such as in firmware, read only memory(ROM), or, as in this example, as executable code in, for example,Random Access Memory (RAM). In addition to these embodiments, it shouldalso be noted that other embodiments herein include the execution of theimage-related smart tag presentation application 140-1 in the processor113 as the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2. Thoseskilled in the art will understand that the computer system 110 mayinclude other processes and/or software and hardware components, such asan operating system not shown in this example.

Examples of different types of tags and corresponding rules forgenerating the different types of tags are shown in FIG. 9. Each type oftag may be configured to create tags based on one or more differentparameters related to the image content that the respective tagdescribes. For example, a type A tag may be a tag generated based on afocus parameter, a type B tag may be a tag generated based on a motionparameter, a type C tag may be a tag generated based on a parameter suchas presence of an object in the respective image content, a type D tagmay be a tag generated based on color saturation associated with theimage content, and so on.

Each tag type also includes tag generation rules 910-N that describe thesettings for parameters that result in the generation and application ofthat tag type. Tag generation rules 910-1, which are associated withtype A tags as shown in FIG. 9, indicated that a type A tag is to begenerated for respective content when the value of a focus parameter isgreater than 0.75. Thus, when analyzing the metadata associated with afirst portion of image content, if metadata for a corresponding portionof the image content indicates a focus level greater than 0.75, a type Atag will be generated and applied to the first portion. If only thefourth portion of the image content has metadata that indicates a focuslevel greater than 0.75, then only the fourth portion of the imagecontent will be tagged with a type A tag. Any number of tags may betagged with a type A if the tag application conditions or rules are met.

In some embodiments, different tag types may be combined to form aso-called super tag. A super tag includes a plurality of parametersinstead of generation of a tag based on a single parameter. The supertag may be generated based on whether a respective portion of imagecontent has been tagged with multiple tags. (Thus, a quality tag asdescribed herein may be a super tag.) For example, if a respectiveportion of the image content is tagged with an in-focus tag, a goodcolor saturation tag, etc., then a quality tag may be applied to therespective image portion to indicate that it is of high quality. Taggingmultiple different sections of the image content based on selection ofone or more tags in this way enables a user to find section of the imagecontent of high quality. Display of the tags in a hierarchical treeenhances the ability of the user to manage the different type of tags.

In one embodiment, when analyzing the metadata associated with imagecontent and applying different types of tags to the portions of imagecontent, the metadata may be analyzed based on a first parameter to tagportions of the image content with a first tag type. As mentioned above,the metadata for corresponding portions of the image content may begenerated based on analyzing how the images appear to a viewer whenplayed back on a display screen. For example, an analyzer may perform ananalysis of pixels in the image content to generate the metadata.

Referring to FIG. 9, as described above, a type A tag applies to imagecontent where a focus value is greater than 0.75. If, for metadata ofall frames inclusive between a first frame of image content and ahundredth frame of image content, and between a three hundredth frame ofimage content and a four hundredth frame of image content, a focus valueof the metadata is greater than 0.75, then a type A tag will begenerated and applied it to the first hundred frames of the imagecontent (i.e., all frames inclusive between the first and the hundredthframe) and the fourth hundred frames (i.e., all frames inclusive betweenthe three hundredth and the four hundredth frame).

The metadata may be analyzed based on a second parameter to tag portionsof the image content with a second tag type. Referring again to FIG. 9,a type D tag applies to color saturation of the image content, and isgenerated when the color saturation of respective image content iswithin a given range X to Y (i.e., tag generation rules 910-4). Thus,the metadata is analyzed to find where the color saturation for portionsof image content falls between the range X to Y. If the color saturationfor the fiftieth frame to the hundred and fiftieth frame is between therange X to Y, then a type D tag will be created and applied to thoseframes (i.e., all frames inclusive between the fiftieth frame and thehundred and fiftieth frame).

The metadata may also be analyzed based on multiple parameters includingthe first parameter and the second parameter to tag portions of theimage content with a third tag type. This third tag type may be a supertag such as a quality tag as mentioned above. For example, as shown inFIG. 9, a type Q tag (representing a super tag) includes, among otherthings, a focus parameter and a color saturation parameter. Taggeneration rules 910-54 include generating a type Q tag when, amongother things, a focus level is greater than 0.75 and when the colorsaturation is between a range X to Y. Thus, the metadata for the imagecontent is analyzed to find those frames when both situations from thetag generation rules 910-54 apply. In the above example, the fiftieth tothe hundredth frames (inclusive) of the image content include a focuslevel greater than 0.75 and have a color saturation falling within therange X to Y. Thus, in this example, a type Q tag will be generated andapplied to the fiftieth to the hundredth frames (inclusive) of the imagecontent.

As shown in FIG. 9, the tag generation rules 910 associated with arespective tag type are used to determine under what circumstances toapply the tags. For example, tag generation rules 910-1 specify when togenerate a focus type tag or tag A associated with image content, taggeneration rules 910-2 specify when to generate a motion type tag or tagB associated with image content, tag generation rules 910-3 specify whento generate a object type tag or tag C associated with image content,tag generation rules 910-4 specify when to generate a color saturationtype tag or tag D associated with image content, tag generation rules910-5 specify when to generate a sound type tag or tag E associated withimage content, and so on.

The computer system 110 receives, through the I/O interface 114, imagecontent 170 and a plurality of tags 175 (also referred to throughout as“smart tags”) associated with the image content 170. The computer system110 receives this data in response to a command received from the user108 through the input device 116 (also connected to the I/O interface114). In some embodiments, as shown in FIG. 1, the image content 170 andthe plurality of tags 175 are provided from a source external to thecomputer system 110, such as a storage device 165. Alternatively, theimage content 170 and/or the plurality of tags 175 may be stored withinthe computer system 110, such as in the memory unit 112 (not shown inFIG. 1). The image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 receivesthe image content 170 and the plurality of tags 175 via the interconnect111 and functions as described further herein to create a tag hierarchy180. The tag hierarchy 180, along with the image content 170, is thenpassed via the I/O interface 114 to the display 130. The image-relatedsmart tag presentation process 140-2 shows the tag hierarchy 180 in thegraphical user interface 160 on the display 130, along with the imagecontent 170 or a portion thereof.

Display of the tag hierarchy 180 and the image content 170 may, in someembodiments, be controlled by display manager 132 according to displaysettings 134. The display settings 134 may be set by the user 108, ormay be provided by the computer system 110. For example, the memory unit112 may include default display settings.

Note that the display 130 need not be coupled directly to computersystem 110. For example, the image-related smart tag presentationapplication 140-1 may be executed on a remotely accessible computerizeddevice via the network interface 115. In this instance, the graphicaluser interface 160 may be displayed locally to a user of the remotecomputer and execution of the processing herein may be client-serverbased.

FIGS. 2-4 are examples various configurations of the graphical userinterface 160, and are described in greater detail herein. FIG. 9illustrates example of various tags as described in greater detailherein. FIGS. 10-13 are examples of displays of tags according toselections made from within a hierarchy of tags, as described in greaterdetail herein. FIGS. 5-8 and 14-15 are flowcharts of various embodimentsof the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2. Therectangular elements are herein denoted “processing blocks” andrepresent computer software instructions or groups of instructions.Alternatively, the processing blocks represent steps performed byfunctionally equivalent circuits such as a digital signal processorcircuit or an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC). Theflowcharts do not depict the syntax of any particular programminglanguage. Rather, the flowcharts illustrate the functional informationone of ordinary skill in the art requires to fabricate circuits or togenerate computer software to perform the processing required inaccordance with the present invention. It should be noted that manyroutine program elements, such as initialization of loops and variablesand the use of temporary variables are not shown. It will be appreciatedby those of ordinary skill in the art that unless otherwise indicatedherein, the particular sequence of steps described is illustrative onlyand may be varied without departing from the spirit of the invention.Thus, unless otherwise stated, the steps described below are unordered,meaning that, when possible, the steps may be performed in anyconvenient or desirable order.

FIG. 5 illustrates the image-related smart tag presentation application140-1 executing as the image-related smart tag presentation process140-2 to present a hierarchy of tags to a user, enabling the user tofind image content of interest by using the hierarchy of tags. Theimage-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 first maintains imagecontent and corresponding tags, step 501. The image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 may maintain image content and correspondingtags in any number of way. For example, the image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 may store image content and correspondingtags in a storage device, such as the memory until 112 shown in FIG. 4,or may otherwise be instructed to retrieve image content andcorresponding tags via user input. Alternatively, a user may not need totake any actions beyond executing the image-related smart tagpresentation application 140-1, which causes the image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 to, according to pre-programming, scan one ormore known storage locations for any and all image content andcorresponding tags, and select everything it finds (or a subset of whatit finds, according to any pre-programmed instructions). Of course, theimage-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 may, uponinitializing, prompt the user to select locations in which it shouldsearch for, and select, image content. Alternatively, or additionally,the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 may prompt theuser for criteria in addition to the location in which to find andselect image content. The image-related smart tag presentation process140-2 then receives the selection after the selection is made, by theuser or otherwise. In some embodiments, in addition to maintaining imagecontent and corresponding tags, the image-related smart tag presentationprocess 140-2 may also maintain metadata information associated with thecorresponding tags, step 509. The metadata information definesattributes of the image content tagged with the corresponding tags, asis described in greater detail herein.

The image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 then presents thecorresponding tags associated with the image content in a hierarchy,step 502. The hierarchy may be any arranging grouping of tags, and in apreferred embodiment, is a tree structure. Each top-level in thehierarchy represents a tag that is description of all of the other tagsbeneath it in the hierarchy. For example, under the motion tag 204 shownin FIG. 2 are tags for pan, zoom, and tilt. Each other sub-level tagthat has one or more tags beneath it is similarly descriptive of theother tags in that sub-level. The tag data that resulted in imagecontent being associated with a tag may be found in at least the levelof the hierarchy containing that tag. Further, each tag includes thelocation of the image content (or portion of image content) associatedwith that tag, so that the image-related smart tag presentation process140-2 is able to find that image content (or portion) upon selection ofthat tag. Each tag type in the hierarchy represents a characteristicassociated with the image content. Each tag in the hierarchy is derivedbased on image-based processing applied to the image content. Thus, acharacteristic may be something captured by the content (e.g., a groupof people at a birthday party), or may be an image-related parameter(e.g., blurriness, brightness, zoom in, etc.), both as determined as aresult of image-based processing of the image content.

An example of a portion of a hierarchy of tags 200 is shown in FIG. 2. Atag may be described in any known way, such as but not limited to bytext, by one or more graphical elements, or by some combination thereof.Each entry in the hierarchy, whether an individual tag such as a shakytag 203, or a group of tags such as a motion group tag 204, isselectable through use of a graphical element, such as checkboxes 206.The image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 may present onlythe top-level entry for a group of tags, and hide the tags that form thegroup (such as a zoom tag 208). The image-related smart tag presentationprocess 140-2 then uses a graphical element, such as a right-facingarrow head 210, to indicate to a user that the zoom tag 208 is a groupof tags, and that other tags may be found by expanding that level of thehierarchy. The image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 mayexpand that level of the hierarchy, and present the tags containedtherein, when, for example, a user selects the right-facing arrow head210, causing it to rotate ninety degrees clockwise (not shown). Thus, adown-facing arrow head (such as a down-facing arrow head 212 next to themotion group tag 204) may indicate that the image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 is presenting tags within the motion group oftags.

In some embodiments, the hierarchy of tags may be so large (e.g., due tothe presence of a large variety of tags associated with image content)that the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 is unable topresent the entire hierarchy on a display device (such as the display130 shown in FIG. 1) at the same time. The image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 may use conventional techniques, such asscrollbars, to allow a user to view the hierarchy, albeit only oneportion at a time. Alternatively, the image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 may filter tags in the hierarchy intosub-groups of related tags, step 504, wherein the sub-group of relatedtags includes a first type of tags and a second type of tags asdescribed herein. This allows, for example, a user to effectively hidetags, or groups of tags, otherwise present in the hierarchy of tags thatthe user is uninterested in. For example, the hierarchy of tags mayinclude a group of tags that identifies the number of faces present inimage content. If the user is not interested in finding image contentbased on the number of faces present in that image content, the user mayinstruct the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 tofilter that group of tags out from the hierarchy. The resultanthierarchy of tags includes sub-groups of tags, which may be based on theoriginal groups in the hierarchy as presented by the image-related smarttag presentation process 140-2. However, the resultant hierarchy doesnot include the filtered out tag(s) (here, the number of faces group oftag). Note that a sub-group of tags, created by the image-related smarttag presentation process 140-2 as a result of filtering, may include oneor more further sub-groups of further related tags, or may include asole individual tag. When the image-related smart tag presentationprocess 140-2 then receives a selection of a sub-group of related tags,step 505, in response, the image-related smart tag presentation process140-2 initiates display of image content tagged with the first type oftags and the second type of tags, step 506. Thus, a user is able toquickly and easily find tags in the hierarchy, and use those tags tofind desired image content, without having to scroll through all of thelevels of the hierarchy, and without having to view any of the imagecontent.

After the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 receives aselection of at least one tag in the hierarchy, in response, theimage-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 initiates display ofthe image content associated with the at least one tag, step 503. Forexample, in a graphical user interface 300 shown in FIG. 3, a user isable to select at least one (and thus possibly more than one) tag in ahierarchy of tags 302. The result is that the image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 initiates display, in a display region 304 ofthe graphical user interface 300, image content 306 associated withthose selected tags. The image content may, as is described in greaterdetail herein, by displayed in any number of ways. The image-relatedsmart tag presentation process 140-2 may also display the selected tagsin any known way. For example, the image-related smart tag presentationprocess 140-2 may arrange the presentation of the hierarchy (e.g., closedown certain levels and open certain others, or filter out unneededlevels) so that all of the selected tags are shown simultaneously in ahierarchy display region 308. Alternatively, or additionally in someembodiments, the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 mayplace a list or other display of tags with each displayed portion ofimage content in the display region 304.

In some embodiments, instead of scrolling through the hierarchy of tags,and collapsing/expanding various levels in order to find particulartags, a user may desire to search the hierarchy of tags. A user mayinitiate a search with the image-related smart tag presentation process140-2 in any number of ways, such as but not limited to selecting asearch functionality command in the graphical user interface. The usermust describe the tag or tags the user is searching for. The user may dothis by describing an event that is of interest to the user (referred tothroughout as an event of interest). An event of interest is simply anoccurrence captured by the image-relate content. The occurrence may beshown though viewing of the image content (e.g., the number of peoplepresent in a portion of the image content), or may be an image-relatedparameter of the image content, as described herein. However a search isinitiated, the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2searches the hierarchy of tags to find tags indicating at least oneevent of interest captured by the image content, step 507. Thus, if auser enters “‘three people’ outside ‘birthday party’ ‘person with brownhair’” as a search, the image-related smart tag presentation process140-2 will search the hierarchy of tags to find tags indicative of thosesearch terms. Thus, the image-related smart tag presentation process140-2 will try to find tags indicating image content including threepeople, outside scenes, scenes from a birthday party, and a person withbrown hair. Of course, the image-related smart tag presentation process140-2 may accept any Boolean search operators, such as but not limitedto AND, OR, and NOT, so that a user is provide robust search queries tothe image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2. Theimage-related smart tag presentation process 140-2, upon finding a groupof tags indicating at least one event of interest, automatically selectsthe group of and displays the corresponding portions of image contenttagged with the group of tags, step 508. Note that, in some embodiments,a group of tags may include only a single tag.

In some embodiments, a user may provide the image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 with event information. Event information maybe, but is not limited to, data that identifies what a user considers tobe an event of interest. In some embodiments, event information mayinclude a text-based description of the event of interest, such as“person standing in a room”. In some embodiments, event information mayinclude graphical data, such as an image, or short video clip, of aperson's face, which the image-related smart tag presentation process140-2 is to find, through image-based processing, within the imagecontent. Any technique for providing the image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 with a description of an event of interestmay be used. Note that event information need not include the same termsas are present in any tags presented in the hierarchy of tags. Thus, thehierarchy of tags may include a group of tags labeled “faces”, where atag represents one or more particular people's faces or the number oftotal faces present in a portion of image content. These tags may be theonly tags that represent whether or not a person is present in anyportion of image content. If the user enters “person standing in a room”as event information, the image-related smart tag presentation process140-2 will associate that event information with the one face tag, eventhough the terms “one”, “face”, and/or “one face” do not appear anywherein the event information.

The image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 then receives theevent information defining a particular type of event of interest, step510. When performing the search for tags related to the event ofinterest, the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2performs a search with respect to the metadata information associatedwith the corresponding tags to locate portions of the image content inwhich the particular type of event of interest occurs for image contenttagged with the corresponding tags, step 511. In response, theimage-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 displays the portionsof the image content in which the particular type of event of interestoccurs in the image content, step 512, as described herein. In FIG. 5B,the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 uses valuesstored within tags in the hierarchy to find image content. Theimage-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 maintains imagecontent and corresponding tags, step 513. The image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 then receives metadata values associated withportions of the image content tagged with the corresponding tags, step516, and associates the metadata values with the corresponding tags,step 517. These values may include values for image-related parametersstored as metadata within tags, and may also include values presentwithin the description of a tag (e.g., “three” from the label of a tag“three faces”). Thus, each tag may describes an image-related parameterof a portion of the image content as a value. An image-related parameteris a measurement determined by image-related processing, such as theblurriness (i.e., focus level), color balance, brightness, etc. of theimage content. An image-related parameter may also include a measurementof a circumstance of the capturing of the image content, such as theamount of zoom in or out, panning in a direction, tilting in adirection, and so on. Note that an image-related parameter does notinclude a date/time stamp associated with the image content. The valueis stored as metadata associated with the tag, and thus is accessible bythe image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 at the level ofthe hierarchy that includes that tag for searching and other operations.Further, in some embodiments, the image-related smart tag presentationprocess 140-2 may create one or more groups of tags in the hierarchybased on the metadata stored within the tags.

The image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 then presents thecorresponding tags associated with the image content in a hierarchy,step 514, each tag type in the hierarchy representing a characteristicassociated with the image content, and each tag in the hierarchy beingderived based on image-based processing applied to the image content, asdescribed above. In response to receiving a selection of at least onetag in the hierarchy, the image-related smart tag presentation process140-2 initiates display of the image content associated with the atleast one tag, step 515. As an example, a user may desire to find imagecontent where the brightness level of the image-related falls within aparticular range of values, such as 0.2 to 0.5. The user may providethis range of values to the image-related smart tag presentation process140-2 using any known techniques. The image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 then searches within groups of the hierarchyof tags to find tags within a particular group that represent a range ofvalues that describe an event of interest present in the image contentassociated with the tags, step 518. Alternatively, the user may desireto find image content where between two and six people appear in theimage content. The user again provides this range of values to theimage-related smart tag presentation process 140-2, which then searchesthe hierarchy to find tags that represent that range of values. When theimage-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 finds tagscorresponding to the desired range, the image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 selects the found tags and displays the imagecontent associated with the found tags, step 519, as otherwise describedherein.

An embodiment in which the image-related smart tag presentation process140-2 may be used to find a particular portion of a video is describedin FIG. 6. The image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2maintains image content and corresponding tags, step 601, as describedabove, but more particularly here, maintains video content includingmultiple frames of images and tags indicating frames of the video inwhich different events occur, step 604. The image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 then presents the corresponding tagsassociated with the image content in a hierarchy, step 602. Each tagtype in the hierarchy represents a characteristic associated with theimage content, and each tag in the hierarchy is derived based onimage-based processing applied to the image content. That is, a tag thatis associated with a portion of image content identifies, for example,that the portion includes a group of three people, or a particularperson's face, as determined by image-based processing. The hierarchy oftags is arranged as described above. A user then selects at least onetag in the hierarchy, for example, by placing a check mark in a checkbox corresponding to the at least one tag. The image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 then receives the selection of at least onetag in the hierarchy, and in response, initiates display of the imagecontent associated with the at least one tag, step 603. Here, theimage-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 receives selection ofa particular type of tag from the hierarchy, step 605, and searches forframes of the video tagged with the particular type of tag, step 606.Thus, a user may use any shown descriptions of tags within thehierarchy, or any other data contained within the hierarchy, such asmetadata about an image-related parameter of a portion of the imagecontent, to determine which tag or tags may lead to the desired video.After performing the search, the image-related smart tag presentationprocess 140-2 initiates display of the frames of the video tagged withthe particular type of tag, step 607.

In FIG. 7, the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2receives analysis data describing one or more parameters of at least aportion of the image content, and derives quality tags from it, whichare then placed into the tag hierarchy. First, as described herein, theimage-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 maintains imagecontent and corresponding tags, step 701. The image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 then presents the corresponding tagsassociated with the image content in a hierarchy, step 702. Each tagtype in the hierarchy represents a characteristic associated with theimage content and each tag in the hierarchy is derived based onimage-based processing applied to the image content. The hierarchy oftags may be arranged in any known way, including those described herein.A user (such as the user 108 shown in FIG. 1) then selects one or moretags in the hierarchy through any known selection techniques, such asbut not limited to highlighting the tags with an input device (such asthe input device 116 shown in FIG. 1) or placing check marks in checkboxes associated with the desired tags (as shown in FIG. 2 or FIGS.10-13). The image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 receivesthe selection of the at least one tag, and in response, initiatesdisplay of the image content associated with the at least one tag, step703.

Prior to the presenting tags associated with the image content, step704, the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 may receive,for each tag within a plurality of tags associated with the imagecontent, analysis data descriptive of a parameter of a portion of theimage content associated with that tag, step 705. The analysis data mayinclude, but is not limited to, values of image-related parameters asdescribed above. The analysis data may further include, for example, theparticular image-processing techniques and/or algorithms used to derivethe analysis data.

The image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 then derivesquality tags from an evaluation of combinations of the parametersdescribed by the analysis data, step 706. A quality tag represents aportion of image content associated with a subset of the plurality oftags. That is, each portion of image content that is associated with aquality tag is also associated with one or more tags presented by theimage-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 in the hierarchy oftags. In a preferred embodiment, the quality tags include a high qualitytag, a medium quality tag, and a low quality tag. Each quality tagdescribes a quality level of the represented image content. Thus, in apreferred embodiment, the high quality tag represents the highestquality level of the image content, the low quality tag represents thelowest quality level of the image content, and the medium quality tagrepresent a quality level in between the highest quality level and thelowest quality level. The requirements for each quality level may bechosen by a user, upon prompting by the image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2, or may be pre-programmed into theimage-related smart tag presentation process 140-2, or may be determinedby the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 based upon theanalysis data for the image content.

The image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 then presentstags associated with the image content and the quality tags in ahierarchy, step 707. As before, each tag type in the hierarchyrepresents a characteristic associated with the image content, and eachtag in the hierarchy is derived based on image-based processing appliedto the image content. Thus, a quality tag may describe, for example,that a five-second section of video is so blurry that it is consideredby the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 to be lowquality, or that a group of eight static images are so sharp in terms ofcolor that they are considered by the image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 to be high quality. The quality tags are intheir own level of the hierarchy of tags, and this level may include howmany ever different quality tags the image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 created based upon the received analysisdata. In some embodiments, the image-related smart tag presentationprocess 140-2 may use the analysis data to create sub-levels (and thusmore tags) within one or more tags corresponding to one of the qualitylevels, dependent on different parameters. For example, to be consideredhigh quality by the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2(and thus associated with the high-quality tag), image content may need(among other things) a brightness value above 0.80 and a blurrinessvalue above 0.95. The brightness values of the image content associatedwith the high quality tag may be from 0.80 to 1.00, such that anyportion of image content with a brightness value closer to 1.00 arebetter than those with a brightness value closer to 0.80. Theimage-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 may thus create tagsunderneath the high quality tag that allow a user to further select highquality images that also have certain brightness values (i.e., exactly0.80, 0.90, 1.00, etc.) and/or brightness values within a range (e.g.,between 0.80 and 0.85, 0.86 and 0.90, and so on). Finally, theimage-related smart tag presentation process 140-2, in response toreceiving a selection of a quality tag and at least one other tag,initiates presentation of a portion of image content that satisfies thequality level associated with the quality tag and includescharacteristics described by the at least one other tag, step 708. Thus,if a user selects the three people tag, the high quality tag, and theoutdoor tag, the only image content that the image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 will show is image content that includesthree people outdoors and is of high quality.

In some embodiments, the process by which smart tags are, generated maybe designed using a plug-in architecture. Each plug-in may specify andperform a different respective analysis technique (i.e., image-basedprocessing) with respect to the image content being analyzed. In anexample embodiment, the smart tag generation process outputs metadataassociated with the analyzed image content in a format such asExtensible Markup Language (XML. Via the plug-in architecture, smarttags may be generated based on multi-parameter analysis. Thus, qualitytags as described above that are derived using the results of multipleanalyses may, in some embodiments, ultimately be implemented by one ormore respective plug-ins to carry out the associated analyses. Forexample, a smart tag generator process may be configured to produce aquality tag based on a brightness plug-in to analyze brightnessassociated with image content, a color contrast plug-in to analyze colorcontrasts associated with image content, and so on. In some embodiments,the smart tag generator process may be a part of the image-related smarttag presentation process 140-2, or may be a separate process capable ofinterfacing with the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2.Alternatively, only the quality tag generation portion of the smart taggenerator process may be a part of the image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 or otherwise interface with the image-relatedsmart tag presentation process 140-2.

FIG. 8 illustrates the image-related smart tag presentation process140-2 playing image content found through the hierarchy of tags theimage-related smart tag presentation process 1402 presents to a user.The image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 first maintainsimage content and corresponding tags, step 801. The image-related smarttag presentation process 140-2 then presents the corresponding tagsassociated with the image content in a hierarchy, step 802, each tagtype in the hierarchy representing a characteristic associated with theimage content, each tag being derived based on image-based processingapplied to the image content. In response to receiving a selection of atleast one tag in the hierarchy, the image-related smart tag presentationprocess 140-2 initiates display of the image content associated with theat least one tag, step 803. Here, in response to receiving a selectionof at least one tag in the hierarchy, the image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 presents each portion of image contentassociated with the at least one tag, step 804. For example, if theimage content is a video or a number of clips from a video, theimage-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 may show a staticimage 402 (i.e., frame) of the video in a graphical user interface 400shown in FIG. 4, and then may show another static image, and so on, ormay show a preview of different portions of the video. Alternatively,the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 may show a seriesof static images such as the images 306 in FIG. 3, where each staticimage represents a frame of video or one of a series of static images(e.g., photographs).

However the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 presentsthe image content, a user may select one of the presented portions ofimage content using any known techniques. Then, in some embodiments, inresponse to receiving a selection of a presented portion of imagecontent, the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 mayinitiate playback of the selected portion of image content, step 805.Thus, if the selected portion of image content is video, theimage-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 begins playing theselected video. Alternatively, if the selected portion of image contentis one or more static images, then the image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 begins to show those images, either one at atime or groups of many at a time (i.e., a slideshow): Upon completion ofplayback of the selected portion of image content, the image-relatedsmart tag presentation process 140-2 initiates playback of a successivepresented portion of image content, step 806. Thus, the image-relatedsmart tag presentation process 140-2 may begin playing the next video ina series of videos, or may begin showing the next image(s) in a seriesof images.

In some embodiments, as shown in FIG. 10, the image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 initiates display of different types of tags1030 using a timeline 1050 presented to a user via a display screen 130.That is, the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2initiates display of a timeline 1050 associated with the image content202. The timeline 1050 represents a sequence of time of the imagecontent 202, but does not necessarily include any of the image content202. The timeline 1050 may be populated with the different types of tags1030 corresponding to the image content 202 to indicate relative timeswhen different events occur in the image content 202.

For example, as shown in FIG. 10, the first instance of tag type B(TB(1)) may be a tag for detected motion in image content 170. Tag TB(1)is associated with content portion C1, which happens to be close in timeto the first instance of tag type A (TA(1)), which may be a focus typetag associated with content portion C3. Similarly, the fourteenthinstance of tag type B (TB(14)), a motion tag associated with contentportion C97, occurs close in time to the second instance of tag type F(TF(2)), which indicates presence of a content portion 98 illustrating asmall group of people. This allows a user viewing the display screen 130to know, without viewing the image content 202 or any portion thereof,that the image content 202 includes motion events at the time identifiedby the first instance of tag type B and a well focused image asspecified by the first instance of tag type A, and that the imagecontent 202 includes a person's face as part of a small group of peoplearound the time as identified by the second instance of tag type F.

Note that, according to one embodiment, the content C1, C3, C7, C12,C16, etc. may not initially be shown with respect to timeline 1050 eventhough tags TB(1), TA(1), TA(2), etc. may be shown in relation totimeline 1050. In such an embodiment, the viewer may comprehend the typeof content associated with image content 170 without having to actuallyview the respective images, sound, etc. associated with content 170. Thetagged portions of content such as C1, C3, C7, etc., may then bedisplayed in response to user input such as a selection of at least onetag in a hierarchy of tags, as shown as user input 223-1 in FIGS. 11-13and described in greater detail in FIGS. 14 and 15 below.

Image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 allows for selectionof at least one tag, as described throughout. For example, as shown inFIG. 10, a hierarchy of tags A, B, C, D, E, F, . . . may be presented onthe display screen 130 or otherwise provided to a user. The user is thenable to select at least one of the tags, such as the tags A, B, and Fselected as shown in FIG. 10. This user input 223 is then provided tothe display manager 132.

In response to receiving the selection of a given tags (i.e., one of thetags A, B, and F), the image-related smart tagging process 140-2initiates display of tag information associated with the given tag, thetag information providing an indication why the tag was created for thecorresponding portion of the content image. That is, in response toreceiving the selection of tag A via the user input 223, theimage-related smart tagging process 140-2 shows tag information 226 onthe display screen 130. The tag information 226 includes the type of tag(i.e., a type A tag), the content to which the tag is applied (i.e.,content portion C94), the rule used to generate the tag, and themetadata derived from an analysis of the content portion C94 (i.e.,F.V.=0.82), which caused the generation of the tag according to therule. The image-related smart tagging process 140-2 would similarlydisplay tag information for a type B tag and a type F tag as well, asthese were also selected according to the user input 223.

FIG. 14 is an example flowchart describing navigation amongst taghierarchy 180 and display of tag-related information according toembodiments herein. In accordance with FIG. 14, the image-related smarttag presentation process 140-2 displays multiple levels of a hierarchyof tags and allows for selection of tags in different levels of thehierarchy, resulting in the presentation of the corresponding imagecontent. Thus, the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2maintains image content and corresponding tags, step 1401. Theimage-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 then presents thecorresponding tags associated with the image content in a hierarchy,each tag type in the hierarchy representing a characteristic associatedwith the image content, each tag in the hierarchy being derived based onimage-based processing applied to the image content, step 1402, asdescribed herein. Here, the image-related smart tag presentation process140-2 initiates display of the hierarchy to multiple levels, a first taglevel of the hierarchy representing tags of a particular type, step1404. Thus, as shown in tag hierarchy 180 of FIG. 11, tag type Arepresents tags of type A, tag type B represents tags of type B, and soon.

The image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 also initiatesdisplay of multiple tag sub-levels beneath the first tag level in thehierarchy. For example, the multiple sub-levels of a first tag level mayinclude a first tag sub-level and a second tag sub-level, the first tagsub-level representing a first type of tags of the particular type, thesecond tag sub-level representing a second type of tags of theparticular type, step 1405. As an example, the tag type A resides at afirst level in the hierarchical tree 180. The sub-levels associated withtag type A as in FIG. 11 are tag type A1, tag type A2, and tag type A3under tag type A, and so on. The sub-levels associated with tag type Bas in FIG. 11 are tag type B1 and tag type B2. The sub-levels associatedwith tag type C as in FIG. 11 are tag type C1, tag type C2, and tag typeC3 under tag type A, and so on. Thus, each level of tags may be brokendown into a sub-level of tags for the respective group. In response toreceiving a selection of at least one tag in the hierarchy, theimage-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 initiates display ofthe tags and/or image content associated with the at least one tag, step1403, as discussed herein. Here, responsive to selection of the firsttag level, the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2initiates display of portions of the image content tagged with the firsttype of tags and the second types of tags, step 1406. Thus, when tagtype A is selected as shown in FIG. 11, the image-related smart tagpresentation process 140-2 may be configured to show all type A tags(i.e., tag type A1, tag type A2, and tag type A3) in the display screen130, as well as their corresponding image content.

In step 1407, responsive to a selection of the first tag sub-levelbeneath the first tag level as shown in FIG. 12, the image-related smarttag presentation process 140-2 initiates display of portions of theimage content tagged with the first type of tags such as tag type A1because this is the level tags selected in the hierarchical tree 180.Thus, when the tag type A1 is selected from the tag hierarchy 180 asshown, in contrast to FIG. 11, the image-related smart tag presentationprocess 140-2 of FIG. 12 shows only tags of type A1. The display manager132 may be configured to also display corresponding image contentassociated with only tag type A1 tags, and not all type A tags. Thus,tag type A2 tags and tag type A3 tags and their corresponding imagecontent, shown in the display screen 130 of FIG. 11, are not present inthe display screen 130 of FIG. 12. Accordingly, user may navigateamongst the tag hierarchy 180 to selectively control which tags aredisplayed on display screen 130. As mentioned above, the display manager132 need not display the tagged content. In such an embodiment, theviewer may view the tags present in the timeline 1050 to get a sense ofhow often a particular type of content appears in the image content 170.

As shown in FIG. 13, the user may further navigate the tag hierarchy 180to and select particular tags at any of multiple levels for viewing onthe display screen. For example, as shown, a user may expand a folder inthe tag hierarchy 180 and view resources at different levels such as anoverall tag type at one level (folder for tag type A, folder for tagtype B, etc.), sub folders of tag types in a given sub-level folder(folder tag type A1, tag type A2, tag type A3, etc.), and yet deeplevels such as down to the individual tag level (TA(1), TA(2), TA(3), .. . ).

A user may further select at least one tag of tag type A1, as is shownin FIG. 13 and otherwise described throughout. Then, the image-relatedsmart tag presentation process 140-2 shows only the selected tags inFIG. 13, namely tag A1(1) and tag A1 (4), as well as their correspondingimage content.

If it any time a user selected one of the other tag levels shown in thetag hierarchy 180 of FIG. 10 (i.e., tag type B or tag type C), theimage-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 would then displaythose type of tags and potentially their corresponding image content aswell depending on a display configuration as a user may be onlyinitially interested in viewing tags and not content. That is,responsive to selection of the second tag sub-level, the image-relatedsmart tag presentation process 140-2 may initiates display of the secondtype of tags, and, if desired, portions of the image content tagged withsecond type of tags, step 1408.

As a further example as shown in FIG. 13, the user may change aselection to a higher level in the tag hierarchy 180. For example, auser may select the folder Tag Type A1. In such an instance, the displaymanager 132 would then initiate display of all tags TA1(1), TA1(2),TA1(3), . . . TA1(24) at appropriate positions on timeline 1050 to showrelative times when the different events corresponding to the tagsoccurred in the image content 170.

As another example, a user may select the folder Tag Type A at yet ahigher level in the tag hierarchy 180. In such an instance, the displaymanager 132 would then initiate display of all tags TA2(1), TA2(2), . .. , TA2(13), TA2(14), etc. at appropriate positions on timeline 1050 toshow relative times when the different events corresponding to the tagsoccurred in the image content 170.

Thus, embodiments herein include responsive to selection of a first taglevel, initiating display of tag symbols on a respective timelineassociated with the image content. For example, assume that the Tag TypeA folder is selected. The tag symbols shown in relation to timeline 1050represent tags in the tag hierarchy 180 beneath the selected first taglevel (Tag Type A) including tags (tag TA1(1), TA1(2), . . . ) beneath afirst tag sub-level (Tag Type A1) and tags (tag TA2(1), TA2(2), . . . )beneath a second tag sub-level (Tag Type A2).

Note that the selection in tag hierarchy may be marked with adistinctive display attributes such that a viewer may identify which ofportion of the tag hierarchy 180 has been selected for viewingcorresponding tags. In one embodiment, the display manager 132 maydisplay the tags with a similar color as a respective color used tohighlight the selection from the tag hierarchy 180.

In yet further embodiments, note that a respective viewer may selectmultiple tag folders in the tag hierarchy 180 for viewing of differenttypes of tagged content. For example, the display manager 132 mayhighlight selected folders with different colors and match the color ofthe folder selection with the color of tags on the timeline 1050.

More specifically, a user may select both tag type A folder and tag typeB folder. Responsive to such input, the display manager 132 may beconfigured to highlight the selected tag type A folder in the taghierarchy 180 with orange highlighting as well as display thecorresponding type A tags on timeline with orange highlighting. Thedisplay manager 132 may be configured to highlight the selected tag typeB folder in the tag hierarchy 180 with green highlighting as well asdisplay the corresponding type B tags on timeline with greenhighlighting. Thus, for each selection, the display manager 132 may usea different color so that a user may select a tag type form thehierarchy and easily identify a corresponding distribution of theselected tag type on timeline 1050. The different colored highlightingenables a respective viewer to distinguish the tag distributions basedon color (or other type of highlighting such as shading or hatching ifso desired.

FIG. 15 is an example flowchart illustrating navigation amongst a taghierarchy 180 and display of tag-related information such as metadataaccording to embodiments herein. FIG. 15 illustrates the image-relatedsmart tag presentation process 140-2 displaying the metadata and otherinformation underlying a tag. The image-related smart tag presentationprocess 140-2 maintains image content and corresponding tags, step 1501.The image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 then presents thecorresponding tags associated with the image content in a hierarchy,step 1502, each tag type in the hierarchy representing a characteristicassociated with the image content, each tag in the hierarchy beingderived based on image-based processing applied to the image content, asdescribed herein. In response to receiving a selection of at least onetag in the hierarchy, the image-related smart tag presentation process140-2 initiates display of the image content associated with the atleast one tag, step 1503. Here, the image-related smart tag presentationprocess 140-2 initiates display of a respective tag associated with theimage content, step 1504. Thus, as shown in FIG. 10, instance twentyfour of a type-A tag (i.e., TA(24)) is shown on the display screen 130.The image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 then receivesselection of the respective tag, step 1505, and in response, initiatesdisplay of metadata information associated with the respective tag, step1506. The metadata information may be tag information 226 shown in FIG.10. Thus, the metadata information may include, but is not limited to, atag type, the corresponding image content portion, a rule for generatingthe tag, and a value used by the rule to create the tag. In other words,the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 may initiatedisplay of metadata information including at least one parameter valuethat triggered generation of the respective tag to be created, step1507, which would be the F.V. (i.e., focus value) of 0.82. In someembodiments, the image-related smart tag presentation process 140-2 mayinitiate display of additional metadata information including at leastone parameter value that did not trigger generation of the respectivetag, step 1508 (not shown in FIG. 10).

The methods and systems described herein are not limited to a particularhardware or software configuration, and may find applicability in manycomputing or processing environments. The methods and systems may beimplemented in hardware or software, or a combination of hardware andsoftware. The methods and systems may be implemented in one or morecomputer programs, where a computer program may be understood to includeone or more processor executable instructions. The computer program(s)may execute on one or more programmable processors, and may be stored onone or more storage medium readable by the processor (including volatileand non-volatile memory and/or storage elements), one or more inputdevices, and/or one or more output devices. The processor thus mayaccess one or more input devices to obtain input data, and may accessone or more output devices to communicate output data. The input and/oroutput devices may include one or more of the following: Random AccessMemory (RAM), Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID), floppy drive,CD, DVD, magnetic disk, internal hard drive, external hard drive, memorystick, or other storage device capable of being accessed by a processoras provided herein, where such aforementioned examples are notexhaustive, and are for illustration and not limitation.

The computer program(s) may be implemented using one or more high levelprocedural or object-oriented programming languages to communicate witha computer system; however, the program(s) may be implemented inassembly or machine language, if desired. The language may be compiledor interpreted.

As provided herein, the processor(s) may thus be embedded in one or moredevices that may be operated independently or together in a networkedenvironment, where the network may include, for example, a Local AreaNetwork (LAN), wide area network (WAN), and/or may include an intranetand/or the internet and/or another network. The network(s) may be wiredor wireless or a combination thereof and may use one or morecommunications protocols to facilitate communications between thedifferent processors. The processors may be configured for distributedprocessing and may utilize, in some embodiments, a client-server modelas needed. Accordingly, the methods and systems may utilize multipleprocessors and/or processor devices, and the processor instructions maybe divided amongst such single- or multiple-processor/devices.

The device(s) or computer systems that integrate with the processor(s)may include, for example, a personal computer(s), workstation(s) (e.g.,Sun, HP), personal digital assistant(s) (PDA(s)), handheld device(s)such as cellular telephone(s), laptop(s), handheld computer(s), oranother device(s) capable of being integrated with a processor(s) thatmay operate as provided herein. Accordingly, the devices provided hereinare not exhaustive and are provided for illustration and not limitation.

References to “a microprocessor” and “a processor”, or “themicroprocessor” and “the processor,” may be understood to include one ormore microprocessors that may communicate in a stand-alone and/or adistributed environment(s), and may thus be configured to communicatevia wired or wireless communications with other processors, where suchone or more processor may be configured to operate on one or moreprocessor-controlled devices that may be similar or different devices.Use of such “microprocessor” or “processor” terminology may thus also beunderstood to include a central processing unit, an arithmetic logicunit, an application-specific integrated circuit (IC), and/or a taskengine, with such examples provided for illustration and not limitation.

Furthermore, references to memory, unless otherwise specified, mayinclude one or more processor-readable and accessible memory elementsand/or components that may be internal to the processor-controlleddevice, external to the processor-controlled device, and/or may beaccessed via a wired or wireless network using a variety ofcommunications protocols, and unless otherwise specified, may bearranged to include a combination of external and internal memorydevices, where such memory may be contiguous and/or partitioned based onthe application. Accordingly, references to a database may be understoodto include one or more memory associations, where such references mayinclude commercially available database products (e.g., SQL, Informix®,Oracle®) and also proprietary databases, and may also include otherstructures for associating memory such as links, queues, graphs, trees,with such structures provided for illustration and not limitation.

References to a network, unless provided otherwise, may include one ormore intranets and/or the internet. References herein to microprocessorinstructions or microprocessor-executable instructions, in accordancewith the above, may be understood to include programmable hardware.

Unless otherwise stated, use of the word “substantially” may beconstrued to include a precise relationship, condition, arrangement,orientation, and/or other characteristic, and deviations thereof asunderstood by one of ordinary skill in the art, to the extent that suchdeviations do not materially affect the disclosed methods and systems.

Throughout the entirety of the present disclosure, use of the articles“a” or “an” to modify a noun may be understood to be used forconvenience and to include one, or more than one of the modified noun,unless otherwise specifically stated.

Elements, components, modules, and/or parts thereof that are describedand/or otherwise portrayed through the figures to communicate with, beassociated with, and/or be based on, something else, may be understoodto so communicate, be associated with, and or be based on in a directand/or indirect manner, unless otherwise stipulated herein.

Although the methods and systems have been described relative to aspecific embodiment thereof, they are not so limited. Obviously manymodifications and variations may become apparent in light of the aboveteachings. Those skilled in the art may make many additional changes inthe details, materials, and arrangement of parts, herein described andillustrated.

1. A method comprising: receiving, by a processor, analysis datadescriptive of at least two quality parameters of image content;determining, by the processor, quality tags for the image content basedon the analysis data, wherein the quality tag identifies a portion ofimage content having a quality level, wherein the quality level is basedon each of the at least two quality parameters having a respective valuethat is within a respective range; presenting, by the processor, aplurality of tags associated with the image content in a hierarchy,wherein the plurality of tags comprises the quality tags and at leastone additional tag, each additional tag type in the hierarchyrepresenting a characteristic associated with the image content, eachadditional tag in the hierarchy being derived based on image-basedprocessing applied to the image content; and in response to receiving aselection of at least one tag in the hierarchy, initiating, by theprocessor, display of the image content associated with the at least onetag.
 2. The method of claim 1 further comprising: filtering, by theprocessor, the plurality of tags in the hierarchy into a sub-group ofrelated tags, wherein the sub-group of related tags includes a firsttype of tags and a second type of tags; receiving, by the processor, aselection of the sub-group of related tags; and in response to receivingthe selection, initiating, by the processor, display of image contenttagged with the first type of tags and the second type of tags.
 3. Themethod of claim 1 further comprising: searching, by the processor, thehierarchy of tags to find tags indicating at least one event of interestcaptured by the image content; and upon finding a group of tagsindicating the at least one event of interest, automatically selecting,by the processor, the group of tags and corresponding portions of theimage content tagged with the group of tags.
 4. The method of claim 1,further comprising: receiving, by the processor, event informationdefining a particular type of event of interest; performing, by theprocessor, a search with respect to metadata information associated withthe plurality of tags to locate portions of the image content in whichthe particular type of event of interest occurs for image content taggedwith the plurality of tags; and based on the search, displaying, by theprocessor, the portions of the image content in which the particulartype of event of interest occurs in the image content.
 5. The method ofclaim 1, wherein receiving the selection includes receiving a selectionof a particular type of tag from the hierarchy; and wherein initiatingdisplay of the image content includes: identifying frames of a portionof image content comprising video content tagged with the particulartype of tag; and initiating display of only the frames of the videocontent tagged with the particular type of tag.
 6. The method of claim1, further comprising: receiving metadata values associated withportions of the image content tagged with the plurality of tags; andassociating the metadata values with the plurality of tags.
 7. Themethod of claim 6 further comprising: searching, by the processor,within groups of the hierarchy of tags to find tags within a particulargroup that represent a range of values that describe an event ofinterest present in the image content associated with the tags; and uponfinding such tags, selecting, by the processor, the found tags anddisplaying the image content associated with the found tags.
 8. Themethod of claim 1 wherein initiating display comprises: in response toreceiving a selection of a quality tag and at least one other tag,initiating presentation of a portion of image content that satisfies thequality level associated with the quality tag and includescharacteristics described by the at least one other tag.
 9. The methodof claim 1 wherein initiating display comprises: in response toreceiving a selection of at least one tag in the hierarchy, presentingeach portion of image content associated with the at least one tag; inresponse to receiving a selection of a presented portion of imagecontent, initiating playback of the selected portion of image content;and upon completion of playback of the selected portion of imagecontent, initiating playback of a successive presented portion of imagecontent.
 10. The method as in claim 1, wherein presenting the pluralityof tags associated with the image content in the hierarchy furthercomprises: initiating display of the hierarchy to multiple levels, afirst tag level of the hierarchy representing tags of a particular type;and initiating display of multiple tag sub-levels beneath the first taglevel in the hierarchy, the multiple sub-levels including a first tagsub-level and a second tag sub-level, the first tag sub-levelrepresenting a first type of tags of the particular type, the second tagsub-level representing a second type of tags of the particular type. 11.The method as in claim 10 further comprising: responsive to selection ofthe first tag level, initiating, by the processor, display of portionsof the image content tagged with the first type of tags and the secondtypes of tags; and responsive to selection of the first tag sub-levelbeneath the first tag level, initiating, by the processor, display ofportions of the image content tagged with the first type of tags; andresponsive to selection of the second tag sub-level, initiating, by theprocessor, display of portions of the image content tagged with thesecond type of tags.
 12. The method as in claim 10 further comprising:responsive to selection of the first tag level, initiating, by theprocessor, display of symbols on a respective timeline associated withthe image content, the symbols representing tags in the hierarchybeneath the first tag level including tags beneath the first tagsub-level and tags beneath the second tag sub-level.
 13. The method ofclaim 1 wherein presenting comprises: initiating display of a respectivetag associated with the image content; receiving selection of therespective tag; and in response to the selection of the respective tag,initiating display of metadata information associated with therespective tag.
 14. The method as in claim 1 further comprising:initiating, by the processor, display of metadata information includingat least one parameter value that triggered generation of the respectivetag to be created; and initiating, by the processor, display ofadditional metadata information including at least one parameter valuethat did not trigger generation of the respective tag.
 15. The method ofclaim 1, wherein receiving analysis data descriptive of at least twoquality parameters of image content comprises receiving analysis datadescriptive of at least two of focus, color saturation, blurriness,color adjustments, or brightness.
 16. The method of claim 1, wherein acharacteristic associated with the image content comprises at least oneof a inclusion of a specified object in the image content, detection ofmotion between frames of the image content, or presence of soundassociated with the image content.
 17. A computer program productcomprising a non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructionsstored thereon for processing data information, such that theinstructions, when carried out by a processing device, enable theprocessing device to perform operations of: maintaining image contentand corresponding tags; receiving, for each tag within a plurality oftags associated with the image content, analysis data descriptive of aparameter of a portion of the image content associated with that tag;deriving quality tags from an evaluation of combinations of theparameters described by the analysis data, a quality tag representing aportion of image content associated with a subset of the plurality oftags, each quality tag describing a quality level of the representedimage content; presenting the corresponding tags associated with theimage content and the quality tags in a hierarchy, each tag type in thehierarchy representing a characteristic associated with the imagecontent, each tag in the hierarchy being derived based on image-basedprocessing applied to the image content and describing a characteristicof a portion of the image content; and in response to receiving aselection of at least one tag in the hierarchy, initiating display ofthe image content associated with the at least one tag, whereininitiating display comprises initiating playback of a portion of imagecontent associated with the at least one tag and, upon completion ofplayback of the first portion of image content, initiating playback of asuccessive portion of image content associated with the at least onetag.
 18. The computer program product of claim 17 further comprisingadditional instructions that, when carried out by a processing device,enable the processing device to perform the additional operations of:filtering tags in the hierarchy into a sub-group of related tags,wherein the sub-group of related tags includes a first type of tags anda second type of tags; receiving a selection of the sub-group of relatedtags; and in response to receiving the selection, initiating display ofimage content tagged with the first type of tags and the second type oftags.
 19. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein maintainingthe corresponding tags includes maintaining metadata informationassociated with the corresponding tags, the metadata informationdefining attributes of the image content tagged with the correspondingtags, the computer program product further comprising: receiving eventinformation defining a particular type of event of interest; performinga search with respect to the metadata information associated with thecorresponding tags to locate portions of the image content in which theparticular type of event of interest occurs for image content taggedwith the corresponding tags; and in response to the search, displayingthe portions of the image content in which the particular type of eventof interest occurs in the image content.
 20. The computer programproduct of claim 17 where initiating display comprises: in response toreceiving a selection of a quality tag and at least one other tag,initiating presentation of a portion of image content that satisfies thequality level associated with the quality tag and includescharacteristics described by the at least one other tag.
 21. Thecomputer program product as in claim 17, wherein presenting thecorresponding tags associated with the image content in the hierarchyfurther comprises: initiating display of the hierarchy to multiplelevels, a first tag level of the hierarchy representing tags of aparticular type; and initiating display of multiple tag sub-levelsbeneath the first tag level in the hierarchy, the multiple sub-levelsincluding a first tag sub-level and a second tag sub-level, the firsttag sub-level representing a first type of tags of the particular type,the second tag sub-level representing a second type of tags of theparticular type.
 22. The computer program product as in claim 21 furthercomprising additional instructions that, when carried out by aprocessing device, enable the processing device to perform theadditional operations of: responsive to selection of the first taglevel, initiating display of portions of the image content tagged withthe first type of tags and the second types of tags; and responsive toselection of the first tag sub-level beneath the first tag level,initiating display of portions of the image content tagged with thefirst type of tags; and responsive to selection of the second tagsub-level, initiating display of portions of the image content taggedwith the second type of tags.
 23. The computer program product of claim17 wherein presenting comprises: initiating display of a respective tagassociated with the image content; receiving selection of the respectivetag; and in response to the selection of the respective tag, initiatingdisplay of metadata information associated with the respective tag. 24.A computer system comprising: a processor; a memory unit that storesinstructions associated with an application executed by the processor; adisplay; and an interconnect coupling the processor, the memory unit,and the display, enabling the computer system to execute the applicationand perform operations of: receiving, by a processor, analysis datadescriptive of at least two quality parameters of image content;determining, by the processor, quality tags for the image content basedon the analysis data, wherein the quality tag identifies a portion ofimage content having a quality level, wherein the quality level is basedon each of the at least two quality parameters having a respective valuethat is within a respective range; presenting a plurality of tagsassociated with the image content in a hierarchy, wherein the pluralityof tags comprises the quality tags and at least one additional tag, eachadditional tag type in the hierarchy representing a characteristicassociated with the image content, each additional tag in the hierarchybeing derived based on image-based processing applied to the imagecontent; and in response to receiving a selection of at least one tag inthe hierarchy, initiating display of the image content associated withthe at least one tag.
 25. The computer system of claim 24 comprising:filtering tags in the hierarchy into a sub-group of related tags,wherein the sub-group of related tags includes a first type of tags anda second type of tags; receiving a selection of the sub-group of relatedtags; and in response to receiving the selection, initiating display ofimage content tagged with the first type of tags and the second type oftags.
 26. The computer system of claim 24, the computer systemconfigured to perform further operations comprising: receiving eventinformation defining a particular type of event of interest; performinga search with respect to metadata information associated with theplurality of tags to locate portions of the image content in which theparticular type of event of interest occurs for image content taggedwith the plurality of tags; and in response to the search, displayingthe portions of the image content in which the particular type of eventof interest occurs in the image content.
 27. The computer system ofclaim 24 where initiating display comprises: in response to receiving aselection of a quality tag and at least one other tag, initiatingpresentation of a portion of image content that satisfies the qualitylevel associated with the quality tag and includes characteristicsdescribed by the at least one other tag.
 28. The computer system as inclaim 24, wherein presenting the plurality of tags associated with theimage content in the hierarchy further comprises: initiating display ofthe hierarchy to multiple levels, a first tag level of the hierarchyrepresenting tags of a particular type; and initiating display ofmultiple tag sub-levels beneath the first tag level in the hierarchy,the multiple sub-levels including a first tag sub-level and a second tagsub-level, the first tag sub-level representing a first type of tags ofthe particular type, the second tag sub-level representing a second typeof tags of the particular type.
 29. The computer system as in claim 28configured to perform further operations comprising: responsive toselection of the first tag level, initiating display of portions of theimage content tagged with the first type of tags and the second types oftags; and responsive to selection of the first tag sub-level beneath thefirst tag level, initiating display of portions of the image contenttagged with the first type of tags; and responsive to selection of thesecond tag sub-level, initiating display of portions of the imagecontent tagged with the second type of tags.
 30. The computer system ofclaim 24 wherein presenting comprises: initiating display of arespective tag associated with the image content; receiving selection ofthe respective tag; and in response to the selection of the respectivetag, initiating display of metadata information associated with therespective tag.